Monday, 22 June 2015

How to Hack the Placebo Effect

Research on
the placebo effect is ramping up across the world because it proves the amazing
power of the mind in health and healing. Peer-reviewed medical journals are
reporting information about the placebo effect that was just a few years ago
considered pseudoscience by science-based skeptics and academicians.

Researchers
who study the placebo effect know that clinical studies must be designed that
carefully control for variables, such as spontaneous remission and bias, to
accurately determine the real placebo effect.[1] They also know these studies
must include a no treatment group. These more carefully designed studies reveal
that a large part of the real placebo effect lies in psychological factors,
such as expectation, learning, and conditioning.[2]

Because of
misinformation and a lack of understanding, most traditional health care
practitioners are biased against the placebo effect, labeling it a form of
deception. This labeling is shortsighted, ignores context, and gives the
placebo effect a bad reputation it doesn’t deserve.[3] Even when the research lays
out the various components of the placebo effect, most health care
practitioners still don’t know how to apply this information in a way that
supports their patients.

In this
article, I’ll help you understand the psychological concepts of the real placebo
effect so that you can, in combination with meditation, hack your own placebo
effect to improve your health.

Combining
Psychological Concepts with Mindfulness and Meditation

Meditation
strengthens your higher awareness, which in combination with these psychological
concepts has the potential to turbocharge your placebo effect in real-time.
When you meditate, you trigger your relaxation response, and your brain waves
transition from a higher frequency beta predominance to a lower frequency alpha
and theta predominance. This increased alpha and theta predominance of brain
waves helps shift your consciousness into a state of openness and higher
awareness.

The shift
from a state of over-analysis and judgment into a state of openness to
possibilities triggers the consciousness of your higher mind, or higher self,
to align with the consciousness of your subconscious mind. In part, it is this
alignment that enables you to hack your own placebo effect by creating your own
ritual of the therapeutic act. For those of you who read my prior article
on the placebo effect, you know that the ritual of the therapeutic act holds
the keys to triggering your placebo effect. You create your own rituals of
therapeutic acts every day through your thoughts and beliefs regarding your
health.

An easy way
to meditate is to simply go into a quiet area, relax into a comfortable
position, close your eyes, and begin to take slow relaxed breaths using your
diaphragm instead of your chest muscles. Pay attention to your breath, and if
you get distracted, return your attention to your breath. If a negative emotion
such as anger arises, acknowledge it by saying in your mind, “I’m feeling
anger,” and the distracting emotion will usually move on. Then come back to
your breath. You already know how to belly-breathe because you did it as a
baby. If you need a little reminder, here is a short video:

The
Hacking Process

As you drop
into a deeper state of meditation, set a positive expectation for being well, and then, in whatever way
resonates with you, visualize and feel
what it’s like to be optimally healthy. As you continue to relax, your brain
waves will shift more and more from a beta to alpha and theta predominance.
When you shift into an alpha, and especially theta predominance, the
consciousness of your higher mind, or higher self, begins to align with the
realm of your subconscious mind.

As this
alignment occurs, you enter a state of consciousness not bound by space or
time, and one that doesn’t differentiate between what’s real and what’s not
real. Visualizing and feeling what it’s like to be completely well in your
deeper brainwave states during meditation conditions
your body-mind to this new reality. As you become conditioned to this new
reality, you are much more likely to create a shift in your physiology to make
that reality so.

Have
Positive Expectations to Reduces Anxiety

Placebo
effect research shows that positive expectations reduce
anxiety.
When you bring an expectation of being well into deeper brainwave states, and
begin to feel that possibility as a
reality, you reduce your anxiety, which automatically increases parasympathetic
tone in your autonomic nervous system. This increased parasympathetic tone
initiates repair processes, reduces cortisol levels, and increases heart rate
variability; all of which result in rejuvenation and rebalancing of your body’s
systems.

When you trulybelieve in your
expectation of being well, you reduce your anxiety, and condition your
body-mind so that your inner physician turns on to heal you.

Expect
Reward

Placebo
effect research also shows that when you have expectation
for reward, you anticipate being rewarded by getting well. But if
you have limiting beliefs stuck in your subconscious mind that say you don’t
deserve a reward, or you don’t deserve to get well, this may block your inner
physician placebo effect from being triggered.

One way to
test for limiting beliefs that may be stuck in your subconscious mind is to use
positive affirmations. For example, say to yourself “I deserve to be rewarded”
or “I deserve to be well.” How do those statements feel to you? Do they feel
right? Do you resonate with those affirmations? If those statements don’t feel
right; if those statements create a negative feeling or negative charge in your
body-mind, then you may need to use a technique for removing these limiting
beliefs. I teach that technique in my Udemy.com course called “Power of the
Mind in Health and Healing.”

Condition
Yourself

Conditioning means learning
through association,
and you can maximize conditioning related to the placebo effect by conditioning
yourself in your meditations. You can condition yourself to associate certain
mantras, music tracks, or guided meditations with seeing and feeling yourself
being completely well. When you do this, your mind begins to associate the
mantra or the music with you actually being well. From that point on, your
body’s physiology shifts into wellness mode when you say those mantras or hear
that music.

Use
Social Learning

Another
psychological component of the placebo effect is social learning, which involves you healing because you see
or hear of others being healed. I encourage you to read others’ stories about
conquering disease, as this is a powerful form of social learning that helps
trigger your placebo effect.

Reinforce
Your Expectations

Reinforcing expectations is another powerful
psychological aspect of the placebo effect. You can use mindfulness to guard against
negative thoughts and beliefs regarding your health, which indirectly helps
reinforce your expectation for being well. It’s impossible to completely guard
against negative thoughts because many negative thoughts are triggered from
your subconscious mind. These thoughts can bubble up even before you are fully
aware of them.

You can
mindfully recognize when a negative thought does bubble up, acknowledge it as a
thought, which isn’t necessarily a truth, and then let it pass before the
thought triggers any significant negative impact on your physiology. This is a
skill that requires honing through repetition, but as you continue to meditate
and practice mindfulness, you’ll get better and better at it. The reason you’ll
get better is because your brain and nervous system are able to adapt through a
process called neuroplasticity.

Reinforce
your expectations of being whole and well in your meditations by staying as
positive as you can about your belief of being well. I’m not asking you to be
in denial about what’s going on with your health. This concept is about living
a balanced life so that you regularly reinforce expectations for being well
amidst negative thoughts about your health that commonly arise.

Use
Optimism as a Tipping Point

Optimism is important when it
comes to magnifying your power of belief in the placebo effect. Research shows that
if you are an optimist, you are much more likely to experience a placebo effect
resulting in positive impacts on your physiology.[4]

If you are
prone to pessimism, you can use mindfulness to be more aware when you are being
pessimistic, and then use the power of your mind to practice being optimistic.
When you regularly practice being optimistic, the neuroplasticity of your brain
kicks in to create deep and long-lasting neuronal pathways of optimism.

A major
benefit of optimism is an increased chance of experiencing a placebo effect
resulting in improved health. The reverse is also true. If you are a pessimist,
you increase your chances of experiencing a nocebo effect; meaning, if you have
a negative attitude, you are much more likely to experience a negative
physiologic reaction to medications and therapeutic encounters.[5]

The ability
to hack your own placebo effect and create optimal health through the power of
your mind is becoming increasingly apparent from the results of placebo effect
research. As with any skill you wish to hone, it just takes a little practice.

Embrace
a Paradox

Despite the
emerging science, we still don’t understand all the facets of why some people
are better at triggering a placebo effect than others. There are many variables
yet to be discovered. It won’t hurt for you to try this approach as long as you
surrender to this paradox – you can always heal without being cured.

Inherent in
this paradox is that often the first step in healing is through accepting the
way things are. After that, you experience the freedom to live life through the
eyes of a child, exploring your possibility for healing with curiosity and
playfulness despite being diagnosed with a disease.

Now use
these concepts to explore your potential for healing. I set a divine intention
with you that you’re pleasantly surprised by the results.

Dr. Keith Holden is a physician board
certified in Internal Medicine and trained in Functional Medicine. He has a
special interest in parapsychology, mind-body medicine, and spirituality in
medicine. His popular course on Udemy.com, “Power
of the Mind in Health and Healing,” teaches how to harness the power of
your mind to heal your body and maximize your intuition.

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